The Poker Game Between the US, China, and Europe

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa will be in Beijing on July 24, for a tense meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang – and, hopefully, with President Xi Jinping, though this is still unclear. The former high representative of the EU for foreign relations, Josep Borrell, famously referred to the April 2022 China-EU online talks as a “dialogue of the deaf,” and the visit of then-Council President Charles Michel and von der Leyen to Beijing in December 2023 was hardly more productive. So, given that a lot of the topics from the agenda of previous summits will still be hovering over the negotiating table, will things be any different this time around?

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